6/21/2016 Gwang Kim, Yunjung Kwon, Eun Suk Suh and Jaemyung Ahn
J. Mech. Des 138(7), 07140; doi: 10.1115/1.4033504 ​

This paper proposes a framework to analyze the architectural complexity of systems developed with a product family. A product family is a set of products that are derived from common sets of parts, interfaces, and processes, known as the product platform. Through the use of product platforms, several variations of products can be developed in a short period of time with relatively low-engineering costs to capture market share in niche market segments as the demand arises. This work can be used in a variety of ways to guide product platform and variant architecture development during the initial concept generation stage. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is demonstrated through a case study of a train bogie platform.
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The process starts with building the design structure matrix (DSM) model, which captures the structural architecture as well as mass, energy, and information flow, for the product platform and its variants. Using the DSMs created and the selected complexity metric, the architectural complexity, which includes the structural complexity and flow complexity values, is assessed. Based on the quantitative results obtained, the overall complexity for the product platform and the product family could be compared with other competing product platform architecture and product family concepts. Furthermore, this process also allows system architects and decision makers to manage overall complexity of an entire product family, either through complexity minimization or by designing the entire platform and product architecture to be less sensitive to engineering changes in terms of complexity fluctuation.

For the Full Research Paper see ASME’s Digital Collection.